www.facebook.com/AFRICICTEDTomslin Samme-Nlar

Kinsley Ndenge(Technology Consultants)

The Ultimate List of ICT tools for Rural African Communities

Introduction

• Are we going to keep complaining about lack of infrastructure??

• How can we use what we have to get what we want!

Printer Boards

Printer Boards are easier to maintain and cheaper to buy. Much cheaper than Interactive whiteboards.

Flash Drives

Affordable and Durable. Learners can save notes and videos prepared by teachers.

Television

TV still provides a great medium through which educational programs can be delivered and it is more affordable than a standard computer.

Radio

Radio is more accessible within rural communities than most other ICT tools. Community radio programs could be a great source of education.

Cell Phones

Cell Phones have greatly penetrated African communities and services such as sms / USSD could be a great source of education and information.

MP3 Players

Great tool that could be used to listen to podcast from teachers. Cheaper and durable.

Compact Disc

Could be used to store information. Great tool for multimedia. Also CD players are easily accessible to many households.

Poodle

• Poodle runs Moodle courses without an Internet connection.• Poodle mounts Moodle on portable drives (e.g. USB sticks,

memory cards, HDD's, etc)

Mobile Applications

Mobile applications usually help users by connecting them to Internet services more commonly accessed on desktop or notebook computers, or help them by making it easier to use the Internet on their portable devices. A Chat application such as whatsapp is good for collaborative learning.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances (using short-wavelength radio transmissions in the ISM band from 2400–2480 MHz) from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks (PANs) with high levels of security. Great for file sharing.

Digital Camera

• Create Educational Videos within any specific context. Learners can also be involved in creating videos and taking pictures which can be used in class.

Laptops

• Portable and can easily be transported for repair and upgrade. Could be used to edit educational videos using appropriate software such as movie maker.

Games for participatory planning

One of the characteristics of interactive participatory planning is feedback and learning. It doesn't require any kind of connectivity. All that is required is a computer. A very effective way of learning is to play games. An Example of such a game is Splash. This is a game based on the idea of SimCity. The player is manager of a river basin area and can decide on spatial planning (e.g. allocate land for farming, nature, housing, industry and recreation). Hereby, the player has to take account of socio-economic, hydrological and ecological processes. These processes are described by simulation models. The player is watched by different stakeholders (e.g. farmers, the industry and environmental activists) and the player’s score is determined by all stockholders satisfaction.

Computer Simulations

Multimedia and computer simulations are a great way of explaining concepts to students which might be difficult to understand. Cheaper and can be reused with several classes. Can be played from CDs making internet connectivity not necessary.

Projector

• A projector is a device that projects an image on a surface. • When enabling rural learning, access to content is an issue, due

to limited access to infrastructure. But this shouldn't be a limiting factor in developing electronic content for the rural learners. Content can be hosted on local servers and be projected to students during a learning session using a projector on a wall by the teacher.

USB Dongles

• USB 3G/CDMA dongles are great ways of accessing Internet in rural areas over a GSM service provider infrastructure. GSM SPs are increasingly providing data services over the same infrastructure used for mobile phone communication and with the current penetration, rural areas can take advantage of this to access broadband Internet with USB dongles.

Digital Voice Recorders

•Recorders are user-friendly and provide high quality audio. Most digital voice recorders are USB compatible for high-speed transfer rate from recorder to PC, able to increase volume of the speaker when being recorded at a great distance and digital pitch control for distortion free sounds. Affordable and simple to use.

Open Source Software

Adoption of OSS by rural communities can result in huge savings on cost. Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under an open-source licence that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.

Conclusion

• Computers and the internet remains a good way of accessing information and also communicating with the world. Computer labs in schools go a long way to assist in the process of communication and also getting information. Considering that most African countries still have a problem of very poor IT infrastructure, power supply and skills shortage, one to one computing would not ameliorate the digital divide. Lets rather work innovatively with what is cheap, affordable and easy to maintain.

• Alternative and greener energy forms such as solar laterns can greatly supplement power sources in rural areas.